The Vine: Meet the Plant Behind Every Glass of Wine

It's easy to think of wine as something that happens in a cellar: barrels, tanks, a winemaker swirling a glass under moody lighting. But every bottle you've ever opened began as a plant clinging to a trellis, working through a full year of sun, rain, frost and pruning shears before a single grape was picked.

This is the first post in our eight-part series, From Vine to Wine, where we follow wine from the ground up. We start in the vineyard, move into the winery, and finish with two questions every wine lover eventually asks: why does this bottle cost what it does, and what do all those words on the label actually mean?

So let's start where wine starts. With the vine.

One Species Does Most of the Work

Grapevines belong to the genus Vitis, which includes dozens of species. But almost all of the world's quality wine comes from just one: Vitis vinifera, a species native to Europe and western Asia. Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Tempranillo are all vinifera. When wine people say "grape variety," they almost always mean a variety of this one species.

North America has its own native species, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia and Vitis rupestris. They're tough, cold-hardy and disease resistant. Classic wines enthusiasts might say that these varietals taste unusual to many drinkers. The grape-jelly character of Concord, a labrusca grape, is the classic example. As it turns out, these North American species ended up saving European wine anyway, just not in the way anyone expected.

Variety, Clone, Crossing or Hybrid?

These four words get tossed around a lot, and the difference between them is simpler than it sounds.

A variety is a distinct type of grapevine within a species, like Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc. Vines don't grow true from seed, so every Merlot vine on earth is propagated from cuttings of another Merlot vine.

A clone is a selection within a variety. Over centuries, individual vines develop small mutations. When a grower spots a Pinot Noir vine with smaller berries or better disease resistance and propagates it, that selection becomes a clone. Same variety, slightly different personality.

Crossings and hybrids are where people usually get tangled up, so here's the one-line rule: a crossing has two parents from the same species, and a hybrid has parents from different species.

Pinotage, South Africa's signature red, is a crossing. Both of its parents, Pinot Noir and Cinsault, are vinifera grapes, so Pinotage is still 100% vinifera.

Vidal, the grape behind most Ontario Icewine, is a hybrid. French grower Jean Louis Vidal bred it in the 1930s from Ugni Blanc (used to make Cognac & Armagnac), a vinifera grape also known as Trebbiano, and Rayon d'Or, which is itself a hybrid. Because its family tree mixes species, Vidal is not a vinifera grape. It was bred to survive cold, wet, frost-prone conditions, and its thick skins and high acidity are exactly why it thrives through Niagara winters.

The Tiny Insect That Changed Everything

In the 1860s, a microscopic root-feeding insect called phylloxera arrived in Europe from North America and nearly wiped out vinifera plantings across the continent. European vines had no defence against it but North American vines, which had evolved alongside the pest, did.

The solution, formally endorsed at the 1881 International Phylloxera Congress in Bordeaux, was grafting. Growers joined a vinifera vine, which produces the grapes, onto the roots of a resistant American vine, called a rootstock. Today the vast majority of the world's vineyards are grafted, and there's still no cure for phylloxera. Ungrafted, own-rooted vineyards survive in only a few places, and the producers who have them tend to be very proud of it.

From Roots to Grapes

Think of the vine in layers. The roots anchor the plant, absorb water and nutrients, and store energy through winter. The trunk and its arms form the permanent woody frame. Each spring, buds push out green shoots carrying leaves, tendrils and the flower clusters that become grapes. By winter those shoots harden into woody canes, ready for pruning.

It goes without saying that the grape itself is where the wine comes from. The skin holds colour, tannin and many aroma compounds; red wine's colour comes almost entirely from the skins, since the juice of most red grapes is clear. The pulp holds water, sugar (which becomes alcohol) and acid (which gives wine its freshness). The seeds carry bitter tannins that winemakers try hard not to crush.

The Vine's Year

A vine lives on a yearly rhythm, and every stage carries a risk. In winter, the vine is dormant and gets pruned, although extreme cold can damage buds or even kill vines. In spring, once average temperatures reach about 10°C, buds burst open, and a single late frost can wipe out a chunk of the crop overnight. Flowering follows when average daily temperatures reach around 20°C, and cold, wet or windy weather here means fewer or uneven berries.

By midsummer comes veraison, when berries soften, start building sugar and change colour. Through ripening, sugar climbs, acidity falls and flavours develop, until the grower decides the balance is right to harvest. That can be anywhere from late summer to, in the case of Icewine, the middle of winter.

One more thing on the label: "old vines." Older vines typically produce smaller crops, and many winemakers believe their fruit has more concentration. But in most regions there's no legal definition of "old," so treat it as a clue rather than a guarantee.

The Bottom Line

The vine is a surprisingly dramatic character. One species carries most of the world's wine, it was rescued from extinction by its North American cousins, and its hardiest Canadian workhorse is a hybrid bred to laugh off the cold. Next time you pour a glass, remember it spent a whole year growing, surviving and ripening before it ever met a winemaker.

In Part 2, we look at the growing environment, and why Niagara's lake, escarpment and winters produce wines that are world class. 

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Glass & Cellar Ltd. is an independent company and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any of the wineries, organizations or publications named in this article. All information is drawn from public sources cited below:

Sources: Decanter, Wine Enthusiast, Wine Country Ontario